John Hutchinson and Kate Wofford

00:04 Kate Wofford.

00:11 Can you go ahead cuz I'm not really followed the instructions of how old is John? Hutchinson? I'm 58 years old. Today. Is June 5th, 2021 and I am in the city of Staunton Virginia conservation. Partner in this call is Kate Wofford with the alliance for the Shenandoah Valley and we have been working together to preserve Virginia's. Iconic Shenandoah Valley for a little more than 10 years and Kate.

00:58 I am Kate Wofford. I am 45 years old today, is Saturday, June 5th, 2021. I am in Berryville, Virginia. My conversation partner is my conservation partner John Hutchinson, and we are friends and colleagues.

01:24 Well, I'm going to kick us off with a question. Thank you for doing this with me. This is a fun way to spend 45 minutes on Saturday morning.

01:39 You and I are.

01:42 Really so fortunate, I think to have the privilege of working to conserve these iconic landscapes.

01:53 These world-class streams and rivers these really incredible communities and the Shenandoah Valley meet at work in this amazing place.

02:09 You've been doing it for what 30 years, 31 going on cuz we've worked together really closely for 10 years. But what got you back to the Shenandoah Valley and got you into this work. I was talking to a friend of ours, Jim Ackles, who is very involved in the Boy, Scouts of America and I Was A Boy Scout for two or three years. When I was in junior, high school and we went camping every once a month, every month. And I am sure that that is, it was foundational to buy wanting to work to preserve the landscape. We're very fortunate here in that. We have a large amount of public lands for especially for a place in the east.

03:09 The county in which I live Augusta. County is 40% public lands, which wouldn't be a whole lot if you were in the Rocky Mountains, but it's a whole lot if you're used to the Mississippi River and

03:24 Just as getting out at and in spending a lot of time in the woods when I was young made me want to work on land conservation. I thought I was going to be a farmer but I don't have I didn't have $500 or $500,000 to reserve Lands, End work on land another way. That's going to go to the University of the South for three years and then transfer to Virginia Tech and get a degree in agriculture. And then go to law school and be a lawyer and make a big pile of money. And then go buy a bunch more money. Be a farmer. That was my plan.

04:17 You didn't know that. Did you get into all this?

04:21 Greenville, South Carolina, golf places.

04:26 You know, job not as good and we met each other in school and Lexington, just to like what's 20 miles south of where you are. Virginia to be clear in, Kentucky.

04:44 And when he fell in love with each other and we fell in love with the place.

04:52 And stay it took a long time to get back to Virginia. After we finished College. We had a bunch of years that well, so we both went to grad school.

05:04 But eventually we had an opportunity. We had a brand new baby and just got offered the biologist job and we jumped on it and came back and we actually thought we'd be back here.

05:20 For three or four years and then on to the next place and here we are 12 years later and we're not going anywhere. This is a wonderful part of the world and his job and I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but definitely wanted to work in conservation. I have been working for a conservation group out west where we were living and say this job happened to open up. I had no idea what it was called the valley Network.

05:49 And,

05:51 I applied for it and they offered me the job. I still don't really know what I was getting into but it was a job in my field and they offered it to me and probably that's my brand. New job was John, Hutchinson, 2 is 20 years then and with John, you were my mentor and friend from the very first day of that job.

06:19 Well, it paid off or paid off but very richly. Why don't we, why don't we talk about our Endeavor to create the shut. The alliance for the Shenandoah Valley?

06:33 Yeah, but don't you love our whole 40 minutes?

06:43 I honestly think if you hadn't been.

06:52 If you had a kidney in the butt.

07:02 Do I have a long-term scheme? That did the one? That one thing about the conservation movement is, it people have a propensity to see a problem. And then, and then say, I need to go create a group to address that problem. Whether it's a, a pipeline, or lack of plastic, recycling or bees taking over the lack of polymer. Pollinators. The first things, a lot of people want to do, is they want to go out and they want to create a group to address their problem. So, conservation groups tend to proliferate and I about a long-term goal of seeing fewer conservation groups and stronger conservation and Todoroki Kate into that goal and we started looking at what?

08:02 Conservation organizations, we could consolidate at the time. I was working for a group that was not appropriate for consolidation. The Shenandoah Valley, Battlefield location.

08:16 But Kate's was so Kate. Started talking to people about consolidating and I was right behind her doing what I do. Push or pull or what do I do to whichever was needed at the time. He sometimes it was pulling, sometimes, it was just like pep talk.

08:38 Sometimes it was helping raise money. Sometimes it was twisting arms and persuading people, but but after after two years, we

08:51 We pulled it off and you know, with a lot of support from a lot of people, but you were right there with every step.

09:01 And so far, so good. Right. I mean, years old. Now, we made up a title for you. The senior advisor or strategic, senior strategic helpers, taking it to the next level, in terms of Partnerships, been getting this work done, in the most.

09:31 Some of the best impact of the alliance is about 3 years old, 7 years old. It is a land trust for the 11 counties in the Shenandoah Valley and it is a group that I work for when I was a baby, but when I was just just getting started in the 1990s at working in land conservation and

10:02 So I kind of had a homecoming at the beginning of this year and took the job as executive director with Valley conservation Council. But a conversation that we continue to have what the alliance is. How closely should we be working together as organizations and still still working on that part, right? Okay, what else was brand-new and now you came back. Like 25 years later as the executive director.

10:49 How does a daughter? That feel it felt very much like a, like a homecoming. It it felt.

11:03 Not that I'm not that I coordinated it out or planned it, but it's, you know, I did some work. I got in League with a friend of ours named Faye Cooper, who is now, retired and work with her and learned the lesson that if you want to work in land conservation and perhaps, if you want to work in the non-profit World in general, you need to be able to raise money. And if you can raise money, then you can do whatever you want. And I helped me learn that. And so I worked off and on, for BCC for about 10 years and then went away for 20 and work for a group that I very much appreciate the Shenandoah Valley Battlefield foundation for 20 years, and then this job came open and it was like, okay, this job was kind of made for me.

12:03 It it it it feels like and I think some of the people who hired me to do it. So the felt like all this guy was made for our job. So I felt like I was doing what I was supposed to be doing.

12:18 But what are you?

12:20 Information. Like what 30 years under your belt, what?

12:25 What are the next big thing? What are the next big challenge? Has the big opportunity is what, like, wakes you up in the night and be ready for global climate change, is the obvious answer to that question. That mean, it's, it's not just the next big challenge. It's the challenge that is upon us, and we were there, and the

13:00 There's lots of ways that we will need to address climate change. One of the primary ones I think is land conservation. Conserving. The land that's already forested that's already in uses that will allow for the migration of species across the landscape as temperatures change and and and the the

13:33 Laura changes as temperature changes change, but and hold down. Nothing's better at holding down.

13:47 Temperatures than a forested landscape and second best would be pastor and farmed landscape. So we are well positioned to have a serious impact on the

14:05 Battle, I don't like to use the word battle on the

14:11 Work to curb climate change, our ability to address this issue. By some people have a very gloom and doom view of what are we going to my God? What we going to do? If the temperature change has 111 degree, we're all doomed. We as a race of how many many many problems thrown at us and we have many many, many smart people to address them. And I think that that we will be able to address climate change. Just as we have the other issues we have faced.

15:04 Are we worried about having enough words in this conversation there?

15:13 I'll ask them if that's what I have just said. That would have been your answer but now having hard as if, of course, though, it will be your answer. We must bike, but if you facing the best generation, I agree with you. I think that our region, the Central Valley is

15:35 But because of the changes that are happening in the climate, it makes to me, it makes our work even more urgent and impactful.

15:46 Remember Jeff in the boys and I went out west last summer and we had a great time camping and it was a terrific, two weeks out in the Rockies, which of the region of the country without really well, and have been a lot of time and you can still connected to some day. But as we were leaving, we were saying my sister Jane.

16:19 Near Boulder Fort, Collins, Colorado and the smoke. From the wildfires started to come like over the mountain and down in the Front Range in Colorado and it was real hot and just a temp, you know, just hot summer days. It's real, Smoky and hazy.

16:42 And the whole two weeks we were out there and it's just been super dry and Dusty which I think it's like that, you know, what the high desert like that in the summer and I just kind of had forgotten that since I've been back in town. We got back to Virginia. This is like mid-august last year and it was so beautifully green. And we have left our vegetable garden like totally just abandoned it and we got back and they were like, there was like, food shooting out of our garden, growing like crazy and the Farms across the valley looks beautiful and wash and we're producing food in it. It hit me that this region is so close to 10 million people. We're like two hours from 10 million people and it rains here, like, I'm going to grow food for people that need food. I hear an owl.

17:42 The climate changes that's going to be more and more important.

17:48 All right now and get back to work. Protecting Farmland. I almost all your own food. Have you been grown within a stone's throw of where you live in Staten have a farmers market every Saturday, for six months of the year and we can walk down the hill and buy all the beasts and all the vegetables and all the in season things that we want. It's really great to live in a place where you don't have to eat chicken from California or Argentina or whatever. We can, we can, we can buy. We had a, we went to the farmers market last Saturday, and they're low and behold was one of us.

18:48 Valley conservation Council board members, Alex more and he was selling the chicken that he produces on his farm. So we bought a roasted chicken from Alex and it was it has been slaughtered like a week ago and we brought it home and cooked it up. And that was our Saturday supper with spinach from the Shenandoah Valley, and other green things that I don't need.

19:17 I'll try to make you eat.

19:22 Access to food and Food Systems and resiliency really came to a head at the beginning of covid-19. Are you in the valley that have retail arms, could not stay stock with milk cream and other products than up. One of the things, I hope we can do together in the coming years, the alliance and BCC is support efforts to build out the food system than connect farmers.

19:57 To New Market, either in the cities, nearby, or here in our region is, did you young people when when we started this, I started this. I was like the young young person in the room and when I went to meetings with, you know, whatever kind of group of Alia Bhatt group. I was the kid in the room. Now, I'm the old man in the room but there and then cake came along 10 years later and she was the baby in the room, but there are fortunately, a lot of young people who are wishing to work in the field of conservation and are working on conservation stuff and people who won.

20:57 Who supported it? It's it's heartening to see. Well, I'm the oldest person on our staff. I double it. Sunday is half of 5 or something like that. But I have a heavily Bender who I'd say. She's our land conservation, Specialist or director and producer, is the future of land conservation in the Shenandoah Valley when I introduce you to people, but she is I was already what 33 when she was born or something like that. So there for a while, it looked like, oh my goodness better, but in the room and what are we going to do, when we all died off? But we have lots of young people who are interested in conservation, and I think that's one

21:57 Reason for us all to focus on resiliency and counter and global warming is because these young people, they look at their future and unless we can address the issues of of climate change. Their future is not bright. But if we can address those issues, their Futures great, so we have a son who's 33? I guess now and we we need to get we need to get this right for him in people younger than him.

22:37 I totally agree and I think you're such a great mentor for your talented young staffers at the valley conservation Council and other young conservationists that are from here or a way that come in now.

22:55 If it gets better before, it gets really busy, but you know, there's a lot of things competing for our time, but I've admired how you always seem to have time for.

23:08 People who are coming up and learning and going to make it a go of conservation. You seem to always make time. So it's it's definitely working like it's passing on all this knowledge and experience that you gained over 30 years. Yeah.

23:46 Well, no, I'm just remembering that your son Carter who when he was right out of college. We at the Shenandoah Valley Network at the time were helping a community out in Western Rockingham, County who was really worried about

24:12 Threat of fracking of Marcellus Shale, gas fracking. Do remember this and we need it. A smart young.

24:22 Energetic person who would have charged us too much money cuz we didn't have anybody hardly to research. The lease has to go to the courthouse, and then research the leases. And so I talked with Carter and he said, sure, I can figure that out. So we hired Carter.

24:39 And he just did an amazing job. He found out all this stuff. He likes to put together all the puzzle pieces of what was going on with this Houston company. He was leasing some land in Western Rockingham County and he only work for us for a few months, but he made a big impression and he did extraordinary work and then he was on his way and has not even look back. First job. He had what's the valley network? But I'll take credit for all his accomplishments because it was his first job doing that research for us.

25:20 No end and talk about mentoring Carter. Still is one of those young people that I look too and say we're going to be okay and you were his men for. He will listen to anything I say, but he will listen to you and I think it's really cool that y'all still chat. He still looks to you for what he's going to do in a situation where he has to figure something out and then that's great. Maybe if you get those boys to grow up a little faster, I can help out with them. But Kate has two young sons who or what 12 and 8:10 and 8. So I'm laying on about yesterday. Oh my well,

26:19 Around in your job for at least 10 more years than you can. And I'm busy right now and I really been working in this field for 30 years. And so if I make it as long as my father did that I've got another 30 years to put into it and

26:52 Retire. I had two people play golf. Anyway, I mean, it's like, this isn't a waste of a good pastor for crying out loud, you know, can't believe they're paying us to do though. I can't imagine you're retiring cuz you're having too much fun. I'll be whether or not. I'm getting paid for it. I'll be bothering you people.

27:22 So what? Let me ask you just thinking about that like how I

27:31 Help motivating. It's just this is the kind of work, but it's easy to be motivated to do it. What would you think if you up in the morning?

27:41 Well, what gets me up in the morning? Well.

27:52 What gets me going is?

27:58 Well, I mean I've had some. I've had some challenges lately that we won't go into but what makes me want to get over those challenges is that there's a lot of really important and rewarding work to do. We were chatting the other day and I I told you about a property that has been brought to BCC. That's right on the West Virginia. Virginia line in Highland County. Is there a petite steak and it's a property that belongs to the Virginia ornithological Society, get to get your mind around the or The Logical but they're the barter's and they asked us if the property is given to them, and they asked us if we would.

28:58 Except a conservation easement on this 40-acre property in the middle of nowhere because it has nesting sites of the golden wings. Warbler. I would know if it's past me in the face because I can't see worth a darn, and I don't, so I can't see part. But so, I mean, that day, it was the golden-winged warbler. They got me up and said, wow, this is fun. We can produce we can we can protect and produce a habitat for a rare species, that is in trouble and we can help make sure that it's. It's it's near for our great-great-grandpa grandchildren and encephalus, you know, the there's there's not there's always something like that. We had the opportunity to take it. He's been on a 900.

29:58 Almost a Thousand Acre property in Page, County near Luray in Virginia. That a couple of months ago that it will eventually be added to the Shenandoah National Park. I mean that's that's really fun properties. Don't blend and get added to the National Park. Very often hear that National Park but in the funds were the fun things about doing. Glen Conservation, is its permanent. So like when I drive around the Shenandoah Valley, I get to go pass places that Judd, 30 years ago or 25 years ago were 10 years ago. I helped protect and that you still protected now and it's going to be protected when we already that far in, okay.

30:52 So that's the sort of thing that gets me. Motivated is wow. I mean, we get to do all this cool stuff and and we're doing it for doing it for good. We're doing it permanent. See and for good we're doing good work from now. You would have a different answer opportunities or constantly changing the threat to the region or constantly changing so

31:28 You're always learning. You're always on your toes. It's creative.

31:33 I'll tell you what's been getting me up in the morning like the prospect of a future Shenandoah rail trail. I'm committed to before we land back or off there going to be able to ride their bikes from Front Royal Virginia, 49 miles to Broadway, Virginia and will and Max are your son's, the two who might say, we've got a few but it's an awesome opportunity and when you talk to people about it, they get so excited for what it would bring to the historic towns along the abandoned rail Corridor, the opportunities for outdoor recreation and tourism and

32:27 Walking their kids to school or riding their bikes, you know, to the brewery is just do, it feels great to work on this project, especially after we spent six years fighting the Atlantic coast pipeline, which was scary to a lot of landowners and I needed and a big throughout and would have done a lot of damage. Great day for something, right? It's feels really good to be trying and stead of fighting something bad in. Stereo feels really good to be working hard to achieve something that's positive all around. Let me ask because I have to and I'm a smart aleck. How did you get talked into working on this rail trail?

33:12 Well, I honestly don't remember, but just based on everything else. I get sucked into it. Work out the specs that you called me and said, you need to get involved in this rail trail. Is that straight that you talked me into it? Why would I want to work on that? That's the well, I was right at the time.

33:35 No way Norfolk Southern was going to be a willing seller for that rail Corridor, but we worked on it anyway, cuz you made me and now, North or Southern Bank Belair, and it's just an awesome project. Good job.

33:56 I'm at night, baby.

34:08 Forged in fire. So you were already like 10 years into the 81 campaign when I got here, but there have been years when it's taking over chunks of hard work life. Trying to keep I-81 from turning into a

34:26 Super wide brightly-lit Master Corridor through our rural region. And I think there are a lot of people that deserve a lot of credit, but you've been in there, keeping an eye on making sure that Improvement Society one or reasonable and compatible with the landscape longer than just about anybody.

34:51 Well, I'm just stubborn and you're willing to read like five hundred change fee. And Federal Highway Administration planning documents. Like nobody else to write. My claim to fame is a red 3. Ft of 3 ft tall. Stucco.

35:09 Bologna from B.

35:16 Well, are we going to keep doing this? But we going to keep keep protecting the iconic, Landscapes, of the Shenandoah Valley. I'm going nowhere. And I've got lots of lots of time on my hands said, well, I have the opportunity to work with you on this. I agree with the famous to you, same to you, and thanks to NPR for providing us the opportunity to share this experience with others.

35:55 Here here.